The Sindh High Court's (SHC) Hyderabad Circuit on Tuesday ordered that the recounting of poll results in NA-230 (Badin-II) continue, but the results must be withheld until August 2, the date for the next hearing of Dr Fehmida Mirza's petition filed today against the recount.
Contesting on a Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) ticket, Mirza had bagged 96,875 votes to defeat her PPP rival Haji Rasool Bux Chandio by a margin of 860 votes. Chandio polled 96,105 votes in the July 25 polls.
Chandio subsequently moved the Returning Officer (RO) for a recount, which began on Saturday after the ROs approval. Following a recount of votes polled at just 13 polling stations, the margin of votes between Mirza and Chandio started to decrease, according to the RO.
The recounting at the judicial complex in Badin had to stopped abruptly on Sunday afternoon when Mirza raised objections and her representatives joined her protest. They walked out of the court prompting the RO to complain of Mirza's attitude to the authorities in writing, seeking directives on a course of action.
He claimed that Mirza "started creating nuisance and tried to create hurdle[s] in the recounting process by raising unreasonable and baseless objections... apparently to avoid the conduct of further recounting proceedings".
On Monday, the Sindh election commissioner had asked the NA-230 ROs to resume and complete the recounting of votes after it had been disrupted by Mirza and her supporters.
Mirza today petitioned the SHC requesting the recount in NA-230 be halted. The court then ordered that recounting continue, but that the results be withheld until the date of the next hearing set for Aug 2.
Separately, the ECP today announced that re-polling will be held on two provincial seats: PS-84 (Dadu) and PK-80 (Kohat).
A notification from the ECP said that the elections will be held on August 4.
The election commission had earlier withheld the results of PK-80 and NA-32 here after alleged hooliganism by an independent candidate, Amjid Afridi, and his supporters at a women’s polling station. It was alleged that Afridi and his followers broke ballot boxes and dispersed ballots.
They allegedly barged into Babri Banda polling station at the girls high school in PK-80 despite strict security and presence of police and army personnel at around 2am on July 26 and threatened the presiding officer for turning the results in his favour. The presiding officer refused and told them that the staff was there for ensuring free and transparent elections.
Workers of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf made footage of the whole scene which became viral on social media.
The presiding officer did not submit report about the incident to the district returning officer despite protest by PTI.
However, when the report vent viral on social media she wrote a letter to district police officer Sohail Khalid to lodge an FIR against Amjid Afridi and his workers and launch an inquiry into the incident.
